Some new guidelines for content to creators have popped and they have the potential to end Free Speech. If they aren't met a video will be demonatized and the youtuber will not make money. Here they are. I will explain the issues with each one individually to explain why this is an issue.
Content that is considered "not advertiser-friendly" includes, but is not limited to:
- Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
- Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
- Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
- Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
- Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
As for the first one, what if someone's reviewing something with sex in it or talking about sex related issues like STDS, a youtuber I watch posted things about depression and sexual abuse and how to recover (Mr.Repzion, if you want to look him up) and those were demonatized. If sex is in the medium being reviews, like with yaois or yuris, it can't be avoided. It's a part of the medium. If someone's cautioning people about safe sex in a video, it cannot be avoided. And as for sexual humor, if someone at youtube doesn't find dick jokes or something like that funny, fine, but humor is suggestive and no one should be penalized for making a joke someone doesn't like.
As for the second one, some videos use violence to make a point, not to condone said acts. Like this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnOJgDW0gPI), without the violence the message wouldn't be as strong. If someone's condoning violence then there's an issue without a doubt, but what if someone's talking about domestic abuse or does a skit on it? What if the violence serves a purpose in the video and isn't condoned. And that guideline makes it impossible to talk about stuff like the Orlando Shooting or the cop killings going on or terrorist attacks, stuff that needs to be discussed and examined.
As for the third one, there are people who make a living off of youtube. It's their job and it keeps them from going hungry. Would you honestly say someone deserves to be homeless or lose their job over naughty lanuage? Look, I don't swear, but people have a right to do so. No one has anyone right to go up to a grown up and penalize them for swearing and this is what Youtube wants to do. Plus the word "harassment" means disagreeing with them for some people.
On the surface the fourth one sounds reasonable, I'm just worried about how they'd interupt the word "promotion". They could say it means just showing a character smoking or refrencing alcohol or a time they were drunk without any real promotion.
And here's the big one that gets me concerned. Youtube became a place where ideas can spread without fear in its earlier days and this spits in the face of it, many of the channels I watch handle sensitive subjects and talk politics. The dialouge could help teenagers and adults digest all this chaos, it did for me and youtube wants to penalize them for even daring to tackle those subjects. Freedom of Speech and of the Press gives us the right to discuss topics like this, every revoltion came from controversial ideas and what counts as such changes with time. Before the suffrage movement saying women should have the right to vote would've counted, so would saying you can't own black people before the civil war, and little while ago saying gay people should be treated equally would've counted, and still does to some people. This guideline will stiffle human progress and we still issue in this country that need correcting as I learned from the very videos they want to penalize.
And I'm not done with this one, this one is the reason Mr. Repzion's depression videos were demonatized. What if someone is talking about helping hurricane victims?They would have to talk about the the hurricane.
I got a plan, if you have a youtube account, talk about this. Go to channels like Mr. Repzion, Computing Forever, and others complaining and band together. Send a message to youtube full of signatures saying that you will not stand for this attack on Free Speech. There are people's incomes at stake and we can't afford to have youtube turn into an echo chamber for only youtube approved ideas.
Hope this helps end this nonsense, sign Katie
Comments
Posted by anna6840
I think you could also argue that while free speech is a right, it is also a right for a company to not have to promote it. They're not necessarily taking it down or demoting it (people can still view it in large numbers) and blocking free speech, they're just stopping people from profiting from profanity. Youtube should be a hobby, not a business for people to make their living from. (Just playing devil's advocate here)